Still another in a great series of Classic Horror Filmscripts. Fully detailed and full of lavish photos, this book goes into censorship problems of that time and gives, in the script, an alternative destruction for Count Dracula. If you loved the movie or collect items on the Universal Monsters then this is a must have. Get this, and others in the Universal Filmscript Series, while you can!

This is an eye-opening, basic primer on the various views of resurrection among the early Christians: was there a spiritual or fleshly resurrection and why? The views of Jesus, Paul, and the Gospel of Thomas (spiritual resurrection) are contrasted with the position of the Gospels of John and Luke and Ignatius of Antioch (fleshly resurrection). Chapter One is a must!

It's fantastic that we finally here the dialog of the monster that was cut out of the picture. Bela Lugosi played the monster in the film. Why was it cut out? The explanation makes no sense since Bela voiced the monster in the final scenes of the previous film. It worked then so why not with this film? The hacking of this script ruined this film. It would have been a much better movie if they left the dialog in. It explains so much.
This a great book for those who are fans of the movie and the Universal monsters. In fact, it's a must!

Another in the great series of Universal Filmscripts. The pictures alone are worth the price of the book. The background also tells about Lugosi's dialogue being cut out and what some of it was. It also explains the ending and the escape of Massey, Knowles, and Ouspenskaya (which is not shown in the film). It is a shame that production of these filmscripts didn't cover ALL of the Universal Horror Movies because of the detailed background of each.

I guess The River of God is technically a new history of Christian origins since it is a new book. However, new does not equate with original. Riley disappoints by not coming up with any original ideas from what I could see. He just rehashes the same old story of Christianity forming from many cultural influences. If you have read anything from somebody at the Claremont School of Theology, the various Ivy League theology schools, or the Jesus Seminar, then you have already read what this book has to offer. I expect more from a professor than to simply publish a long book report of other people's ideas.

This is also not a book for Christians who believe in the bible and the God of the bible. Riley's Jesus is more of a relativist created by cultural influences before him as opposed to being God in the flesh.

In The River of God, Gregory Riley shines light on much of the history of Christian origins often ignored by scholars. Most researchers of Christianity restrict themselves to the influence of the West (Greek and Roman) and often confuse Rabbinic Judaism with the Judaism of Jesus' times; Prof. Riley adds the whole of Middle Eastern religious history to the story of our search for God. Riley includes the development of Cannanite and Mesopotamian religion in the history of ancient Judaism. In addition to Greek ideas of Orphism, Pythagoreanism and Plato, he recognizes the Egyptian and Persian Zoroastrian influences on the development of Christian concepts of afterlife. Riley outlines the role of Persian Zoroastrianism on our understanding of Satan and a world savior. He details how various ancient religious models of God from both East and West as well as Greek science contributed to the development of our understanding of the division of body and soul and the creation of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century. The River of God is not a general overview of world religions; it is specifically about the development of Christianity from a modern Christian perspective. Prof. Riley writes with a broad brush in his outline of the development of Christianity and, while scholars will quibble over some of the details and generalizations, I found The River of God to be an excellent overview of our understanding of "the process of the River of God."

While I find Riley's thesis interesting and relatively entertaining, I am not impressed with his scholarship. He makes statements that do not withstand scrutiny, for example he writes: Jesus was opposed to many Jewish traditions.
Actually Jesus affirms that he has not come to change the Law but to fulfill it, where he does go beyond Mosaic Law it is in employing that old rabbinical device of 'building a fence round the Torah'. By exceeding the demands of the Law he ensures that the circumstances where the Law is broken can never arise.

Riley also misquotes, for example in Chapter 4 - The Story of Jesus, the section titled 'The Genetics of the Hero and the virgin birth' he quotes Isaiah 7:14 RSV as:
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
when it actually reads:
Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

A very critical difference that has kept theologians in gainful employment for centuries. (But the passage Riley ascribes to Isaiah comes from Matthew)

I can't judge whether this is sloppy or deliberate but it undermines the authority with which he writes.

Actually has some useful material,though nothing you won't see in other books.Good in the readable sense,but seems to pander to political correctness more than history.Does get a few things right though. One would be far better off reading Historical Jesus material by NT Wright,EP Sanders,or Gregory Boyd.

The Kirkus review above gives a good description of the book. The author, Gregory Riley, is a professor at Claremont College in California. He provides a good history of Greek and Jewish legends, along with the details of how they could have affected early Christian writers. He also shows the development of dualistic and Hellenistic beliefs (body-soul and God-Satan) in the late Old Testament and New Testament writers. I would also mention Riley's emphasis on the diversity of early Christianity (which was lost for the most part in the 4th Century when Constantine took over the church and imposed uniformity, and which was regained again in the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century). What Riley might have ignored is the intense, often bloody rivalries between Christian sects, then and now. As Garry Wills mentions in "Papal Sin," there is evidence that Peter and Paul were fingered by a rival Christian group as instigators of the burning of Rome, resulting in their execution. Christians--and members of all religions--will find diversity and harmony difficult as long as they are committed to the idea of absolute truth.